Last week, the Alberta Labour Relations Board published their final new applications report for October 2026, which included all applications they received between the 18th and 25th of October.
One of those applications was for union certification.
The Alberta Union of Provincial Employees filed the application on the 23rd on behalf of 86 workers employed by CBI Home Health (AB) Limited Partnership.
In 2011, CBI Health was purchased by OMERS Private Equity. Late last year, OMERS announced that it was selling CBI Health’s home care division to Paramed Inc., which itself is a subsidiary of Extendicare Inc.
That sale was completed this past April for a cash purchase price of $570 million and about $13.6 million in lease liabilities.
To submit a union certification application in Alberta, the workers (or the affiliated union) must demonstrate support among at least 40% of the workers who would be part of the proposed bargaining unit. In this case, that will be 36 workers.
The labour board has scheduled a hearing for this application, which will occur this Friday (6th). During the hearing, representatives from the employer can present arguments, if they have any, as to why these workers should not be able to unionize with AUPE.
Listed in the application summary as a representative of CBI Home Health was Kaila Attig, who works as care manager for CBI in Lethbridge.
Should the ALRB approve the application, they will conduct a certification vote, giving the workers the chance to democratically choose whether to unionize.
Assuming the 36 workers I mentioned earlier follow through with their initial intention and vote in favour of unionization, they would need to convince just 9 more fellow workers to join them.
If a majority of workers vote in favour of unionization and the labour board awards a certificate, one of their first items of business will be to elect their bargaining committee and begin negotiating their first collective agreement.
This application is specifically for workers employed by CBI in Lethbridge and the surrounding area. AUPE has represented Edmonton CBI workers since 2015.
Because the ALRB does not archive their new application reports, I have included last week’s report below for your convenience.
